1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle seat apparatus, and more particularly to a seat structure in which a seat can be rotated to be stowed.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, constructions have been getting common on vehicles of station wagon and van types in which a third-row seat is provided in a space behind a second-row seat in the passenger compartment.
However, the third-row seat so provided occupies a luggage space. Thus there is caused a problem that when a piece of large-sized luggage or a number of pieces of luggage are attempted to be loaded in the vehicle in addition to passengers, the luggage cannot be loaded as desired.
To cope with this problem, a seat stowing structure is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 2594404 in which a recessed stowage portion is provided in the surface of a floor of a vehicle at a position behind a third-row seat so that the third-row seat can be folded and rotated backward to thereby be stowed in the recessed stowage portion.
With the structure disclosed in the Japanese registered utility model publication, however, since the third-row seat is an integral or one-piece seat, no passenger can be seated at a position where the third-row seat is provided when the seat is stowed in the recessed stowage portion. On the other hand, when the seat is not stowed and is used as it is designed, the conventional problem that a relatively large piece luggage cannot be loaded as desired still remains.
Namely, with the structure disclosed in the publication, the space at the rear of the passenger compartment of the vehicle cannot be shared by a passenger and luggage, and hence the structure is found to be inconvenient and impractical.